Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentation and replies to questions. To return to Deputy O’Connell's first question on information being exchanged on the sale of a practice, due diligence applies nowadays to all commercial transactions. Does a due diligence process apply when a medical practice is being taken over? Does the legislation provide for this? I am not convinced by the answers provided thus far that this matter has been addressed adequately. Due diligence would involve a careful examination of all the records of a practice before a decision is taken to pay out €100,000, €200,000 or €1 million to take over the practice. I do not believe the matter is either covered or excluded from this process. I ask for a response.

Were the processes in place in other countries considered before the plans were made? In Denmark, for example, patient records have been entirely digitised since 1996 and I understand the number of information technology systems in use there has been reduced to 25, with a view to reducing it further to five. The health service here uses approximately 1,700 information technology systems.

I am a little sceptical about the approach to be taken to this process. In November 2013, I submitted a question to the Health Service Executive seeking details of the number of consultants working in the HSE and the number of consultant vacancies. I received a detailed response in January 2014, which provided a template setting out the number of consultants in each hospital in each area, the number of vacancies, locums, etc. It was clear that records were being kept and had been digitised. When I submitted the same question in November 2016, however, I was informed that this system no longer exists and the HSE was developing a new system module to bring its records up to date. Why was the system in place in January 2014 abandoned at some point before November 2016? Information on the number of vacancies for hospital consultants and the number of locums operating in the HSE is crucial for forward planning purposes, for example, to ensure a recruitment process commences before a member of staff retires. This basic information, which is of fundamental importance to the HSE, was abandoned at some point between January 2014 and November 2016. While everyone is talking about paperwork, legislation and so forth, I am concerned about how the process will be implemented given the inability of the HSE to maintain such basic information. I ask the witnesses to address that issue.